“Of course you’re a whole person—everyone is—”
“No. You aren’t. You aren’t because you know nothing about something you claim is important to you.”
“What do you want me to do?” Ereza asked. She felt grumpy. Her stump hurt now, and she wanted to be back with people who didn’t make ridiculous emotional arguments or confuse her.
“Quit thinking of me as sweet little Arlashi, your pet twin, harmless and fragile and impractical. Learn a little music, so you’ll know what discipline really is. Or admit you don’t really care, and quit condescending to me.”
“Of course I care.” She cared that her sister had gone crazy, at least. Then a thought occurred to her. “Tell me—do the other musicians feel as you do?”
Arla cocked her head and gave her an unreadable look. “Come to the concert tomorrow, Eri.”
“I don’t know if I can—” She didn’t know if she wanted to. A long journey into the city, hours crammed into a seat with others, listening to music that didn’t (if she was honest) interest her that much. She’d already heard it, parts of it over and over. “How about tomorrow’s rehearsal?”
“No. The concert. I can get you in. If you want to know how musicians think, and why… then come.”
“Are the others—?”
“I don’t know. Grandmother usually comes to my performances, but the others less often. I wish you would, Eri.”
Ereza sat in the back row of the concert hall, surrounded by people in formal clothes and dress uniforms. Onstage the orchestra waited, in formal black and white, for the soloist and conductor. She saw a stir at the edge of the stage. Arla, in her long swirling dress, with the cello. The conductor—she looked quickly at her program for his name. Mikailos Bogdan.
Applause, which settled quickly as the house lights went down. Now the clear dome showed a dark night sky with a thick wedge of stars, the edge of the Cursai Cluster. The conductor lifted his arms. Ereza watched; the musicians did not stir. His arms came down.
Noise burst from speakers around the hall. As if conducting music, Bogdan’s arms moved, but the noise had nothing to do with his direction. Grinding, squealing, exploding—all the noises that Ereza finally recognized as belonging to an armored ground unit in battle. Rattle and clank of treads, grinding roar of engines, tiny voices yelling, screaming, the heavy thump of artillery and lighter crackling of small arms. Around her the others stirred, looked at one another in amazement, then horror.
Onstage, no one moved. The musicians stared ahead, oblivious to the noise; Ereza, having heard the rehearsal, wondered how they could stand it. And why? Why work so for perfection in rehearsal if they never meant to play? Toward the front, someone stood—someone in uniform—and yelled. Ereza could not hear it over the shattering roar that came from the speakers, then—low-level aircraft strafing, she thought. She remembered that sound. Another two or three people stood up; the first to stand began to push his way out of his row. One of the others was hauled back down by those sitting near him.
The sound changed, this time to the repetitive crump-crump-crump-crump of bombardment. Vague, near-human sounds, too… Ereza shivered, knowing before it came clear what that would be. Screams, moans, sobs… it went on far too long. She wanted to get up and leave, but she had no strength.
Silence, when it finally came, was welcome. Ereza could hear, as her ears regained their balance, the ragged breathing of the audience. Silence continued, the conductor still moving his arms as if the orchestra were responding. Finally, he brought the unnerving performance to a close, turned and bowed to them. A few people clapped, uncertainly; no one else joined them and the sound died away.
“Disgracefully bad taste,” said someone to Ereza’s right. “I don’t know what they think they’re doing.”
“Getting us ready to be ravished by Fennaris, no doubt. Have you heard her before?”
“Only on recordings. I’ve been looking forward to this for decads.”
“She’s worth it. I heard her first in a chamber group two years ago, and—” The conductor beckoned, and Arla stood; the gossipers quieted. Intent curiosity crackled around the hall, silent but alive.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Arla said. She had an untrained voice, but even so it carried to the back of the hall. “You may be wondering what happened to the Goldieri Concerto. We chose to make another statement about music.”
The conductor bowed to her, and signaled the orchestra. Each musician held an instrument at arm’s length; at the flick of his baton they all dropped to the floor, the light rattling cases of violins, the softer boom of violas, the clatter and thud and tinkle of woodwinds, brasses, percussion. A tiny round drum rolled along the floor until it ran into someone’s leg and fell over with a final loud tap. Louder than that was the indrawn breath of the audience.
“I’m Arla,” she said, standing alone, facing a crowd whose confusion was slowly turning to hostility. Ereza felt her skin tingling. “Most of you know me as Arla Fennaris, but tonight I’m changing my name. I want you to know why.”
She turned and picked up her cello, which she had left leaning against her chair. No, Ereza thought, don’t do it. Not that one. Please.
“You think of me as a cellist,” Arla said, and plucked three notes with one hand. “A cellist is a musician, and a musician—I have this from my own sister, a wounded veteran, as many of you know—a musician is to most of you an impractical child. A fool.” She ran her hand down the strings, and the sound echoed in Ereza’s bones. She shivered, and so did the people sitting next to her. “She tells me, my sister, that the reason we’re at war right now—the reason she lost her arm—is that I am a mere musician, and need protection. I can’t protect myself; I send others out to die, to keep me and my music alive.” Another sweeping move across the strings, and a sound that went through Ereza like a jagged blade. All she could think was No, no, don’t… no… but she recognized the look on Arla’s face, the tone of her voice. Here was someone committed beyond reason to whatever she was doing.
But Arla had turned, and found her chair again. She was sitting as she would for any performance, the cello nestled in the hollow of her skirt, the bow in her right hand. “It is easy to make noise,” Arla said. With a move Ereza did not understand, she made an ugly noise explode from the cello. “It takes skill to make music.” Arla played a short phrase as sweet as spring sunshine. “It is easy to destroy—” She held the cello up, as if to throw it, and again Ereza heard the indrawn breath as the audience waited. Then she put it down. “It takes skill to make—in this case, millennia of instrument designers, and Barrahesh, here on Cravor’s World, with a passion for the re-creation of classic instruments. I have no right to destroy his work—but it would be easy.” She tapped the cello’s side, and the resonant sound expressed fragility. “As with my cello, with everything. It is easy to kill; it takes skill to nurture life.” Again she played a short phrase, this one a familiar child’s song about planting flower seeds in the desert.
“My sister,” Arla said, and her eyes found Ereza’s, and locked onto them. “My sister is a soldier, a brave soldier, who was wounded… she would say protecting me. Protection I never asked for, and did not need. Her arm the price of this one—” She held up her right arm. “It is difficult to make music when you are using your sister’s arm. An arm taught to make war, not music. An arm that does not respect music.”